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Welcome back Replicant, sure has been a long time since you were around.
As for Ares II, I believe there was one in the works last year. Haven't heard anything from anyone since then though, and judging by Lamont's site ( (url="http://"http://www.biggerplanet.com")www.biggerplanet.com(/url) ), he doesn't seem to be doing much programming lately(that "watch this space for info on "Wicked" has been there for over a year now I think)
However, I believe that the M:Inv team had actually talked NL into implementing a few extra actions last year into Ares, but of course since they still haven't made any levels(they have the ships in Hera though), as far as I know, nothing has happened.
Heh, anyways, before we go talking to NL, we need to actually have something heh. ATMOS did have the EV/O Nova plug partly done already after all.
------------------ Sign up for the Ares ladder http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum3/...TML/000748.html www.magleague.com GameRanger/MagChat SN: Col. Patrick (EL)
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Some preliminary interesting ideas:
- Aforementioned space mines. I'm pretty sure that they can be rigged so that the Zoom to Hostile setting doesn't give them away in multiplayer or when the computer has them. - Two-stage ships - a lot like Starcraft's siege tanks, they would have a mobile form and a stationary form, with the stationary form being deadlier. This would be accomplished by having the special weapon of the mobile version remove that version and create the stationary version, and vice versa. - A flak-type weapon that strikes an area. I've played around with this and it's pretty fun. It can be fixed so that the weapon is useless at close ranges to add some interesting strategy. Of course, the Ares AI doesn't understand the concept of weapons that require long-range, or standoff attacks, so it has to be given to the player except maybe in some special situations.
That's my bag of tricks as far as interesting and new things that the player would not have seen before.
Space mines sound good. I wonder if it would be possible to rig them to release only when the comp's ship is being chased. I think there is a "fire when in trouble" flag or something like it. Also, to increase chances of hitting, we could have the explosion deal the damage, much as the nukes in SETR could take out squadrons of ships at once. Probably we should have them time out after 120 seconds or so, but let the ones dropped by a special player ship(maybe one of the races HVD-equivalent could have mines) last for 4-5 minutes. That 255 object limit certainly doesn't help things...
2-stage ships are also a cool idea. These were executed, albeit with some problems, in Mag Steelglass' War In The Void. We'd probably need to have them player-controlled though, because otherwise we'd have problems with hyperbombing being able to freeze a fleet's main guns into position.
Flak rocks! In Ares Net Remix Plus by KMQ, the readme mentioned "and an improved Gaitori gunship that hangs back" I haven't looked at the plug with Hera, but whatever KMQ did might also work for flak ships.
Originally posted by Replicant: **Some preliminary interesting ideas:
**
A stationary mine that sits and shoots at you would be very boring.
Stationary ships? a ship is NEVER meant to be stationary as it's main propose. It's main propose is to zoom around the galaxy.
Ok, not to be rude or anything....
I think we should put more emphasis of a fast moving star war. light fast star craft, speedy battles. Look at the past.
Wars in the very old past, -Dark Ages- could take many years, even centuries. Wars have been becoming very much more advanced. Each new war is almost always faster then it's predecessor. Airplanes always become faster war or no war. Tank's also have evolved in speed. Today they move at easy speeds of 50 kph.
Things are getting faster, better. A star war set it the future would most likely a fast changing one. No sieges. Only swift decisive attacks by squadrons of light ships, followed by major battles.
Please, lets not make a plug with slow sluggish ships, and siege wars. They arnt any fun. And I dont believe that this is the real future of star craft. (i just HATE long stagnating space battles.)
Oh, Merry Cristmas!! ------------------ Truth is a double edged sword, with it the ignorant newbie is beaten, with it your mistakes are exposed.
(This message has been edited by Skyfox (edited 12-25-2001).)
I'm not talking about a stationary mine that sits and shoots at you, I'm talking about a stationary mine that blows up when you hit it, like a landmine.
Don't forget, every war also has defensive components. Also don't forget, there's no reason that a stationary ship has to be boring. I would find nothing boring about frantically trying to destroy an enemy ship before it attained a stable orbit and began beating the tar out of me with powerful armament.
Finally, don't assume that faster is better. In my opinion, the speed of movement in Ares is a bad thing. There's no need for reconaissance because with few exceptions the enemy is always visible... no waiting for scouts to find anything out. Your fleet can essentially be anywhere at any time because of hyperspace, so that all the game really comes down to is who has more ships - there are none of the tactical considerations of distances and divided forces. Think for a moment... the only time that the strategy of Ares goes beyond whose fleet would win in a battle is when you're dealing with capturing planets and stations... which is done by transports... that don't have hyperdrive. The player should not be holding down F6 to fast forward out of boredom, but neither should levels that are supposed to involve strategy boil down to four minutes of firefight because the player can ignore all tactical considerations of defense and reinforcement and simply jump into hyperspace to wherever the enemy is and duke it out.
------------------ Replicant
It's been a while since I've checked the boards, as I completely lost interest in Ares for a while. This looks quite interesting, though. I could do 4 (mostly for the ships and weapons) and I can definately do 8.
I really like Patrick's idea of: Humans colonize surrounding systems using STL travel. Earth later develops FTL and now wants the resources and riches of the former colonies for itself.
That would allow great variety in the ship types of each group, as they've been isolated for a long time, and would be a great plot. It'd also be cool to have pirates thrown into the mix, which could by why the individual colonies would have warships ready to fight the Earth forces.
As far as how the ships would function and battles would go, if we were to be realistic: ships would be extremely fast ships would have horrible acceleration ships would have pretty bad turning ships would have very low shielding they'd be completely decked out with guns guns would be long range (about as long as concussion missiles in Ares) and either very high accuracy or capable of very large splash damage ships would be very stealthy. much fighting would probably become like submarine fights ships would be very small
I've done some experimentation on this recently, and it's very different than ares, and more fun in some ways, but less fun in others. I think it would be very good to get as different from ares as possible. Ship classes shouldn't match with Ares and should be different for each individual faction. There should be different kinds of bases and methods for getting additional resources should be made available to the player(s). And we should really try to make combat and overall strategy different than the standard.
------------------ "United we stand, so I wandered off and got me a chair."
What game are we talking about here anyways?
And I dont believe that this is the real future of star craft
Don't you mean Ares?
about as long as concussion missiles in Ares
There are concussion missles in Ares? Don't you mean EVO?
Anyways...
I think the game should include fast ships sure, but I think a game completely in fighter-type ships would suck ass. But the major ships being like the Ishman's Heavy Cruiser is soemthing I'd like......
------------------ -Admiral Dennis
(This message has been edited by Admiral Dennis (edited 12-25-2001).)
Well, first off, I'd like to wish everyone a merry christmas(although it's a little late now lol)
Admiral Dennis:
I believe the carrier/hvd/hvc missiles have a shortened name of cmissile Therefore, it could possibly stand for either Concussion Missile or Cruise Missile.
Mag Steelglass:
Nice to see you back too. An interesting idea, but Im not sure I really like the idea of having superfast ships with low turn duking it out. In the WITV training missions where you introduced combat ships, the fighter-fighter and bomber-bomber combat was very boring, simply because they were too fast+too small to hit.
Also, Ares(unfortunately) cant handle good stealth/cloak tech.
But, perhaps we could do something like this: Races:
Earth Ares-style ships(HVD, carrier, gunship etc.) Normal ares sizes.(Ive got a set of sprites for a fighter-corvette-frigate-light cruiser-heavy cruiser-carrier race that might be good) Good, ares-speed hyperdrive.
Colonist Faction 1: slow, tough, and plodding ships, some with an optional seige mode that takes say 25-45 seconds to activate, but is extremely powerful once completeted. Ships switch back when player activates their special. Ships are large sized.(80x80 - 192x192 ?) No hyperdrive
Colonist Faction 2: Low shields, but fast and equipped with long-range guided weapons. Also small. ( 24x24 - 96-96? ) human-speed hyperdrive(stolen from Earth forces, not up to spec)
Pirates: Fast, low shields, powerful weapons, and big(to hold captured cargo) ( 64x64 - 144x144 ?) no hyperdrive(havent managed to steal one and reverse-engineer it yet)
Aliens?(gotta have em heh heh heh ) fast, small, powerful( aliens=auds of ares) bent of extermination of humankind ( but for a reason. perhaps they had been warned by others of their race from the future that humanity would grow too strong?)
Originally posted by Patrick: But, perhaps we could do something like this: Races:
Earth Ares-style ships(HVD, carrier, gunship etc.) Normal ares sizes.(Ive got a set of sprites for a fighter-corvette-frigate-light cruiser-heavy cruiser-carrier race that might be good) Good, ares-speed hyperdrive. (/b)
Maybe add a police class frigate that is used to patorl planets? (could carry cool police paintwork on their ships too
Colonist Faction 1: slow, tough, and plodding ships, some with an optional seige mode that takes say 25-45 seconds to activate, but is extremely powerful once completeted. Ships switch back when player activates their special. Ships are large sized.(80x80 - 192x192 ?) No hyperdrive (/B)
Weapons? Probably short range but flak style. Good and strong, can blow up any ship pretty quick but short range?
Colonist Faction 2: Low shields, but fast and equipped with long-range guided weapons. Also small. ( 24x24 - 96-96? ) human-speed hyperdrive(stolen from Earth forces, not up to spec) /B)
Shure
Pirates: Fast, low shields, powerful weapons, and big(to hold captured cargo) ( 64x64 - 144x144 ?) no hyperdrive(havent managed to steal one and reverse-engineer it yet) /B)
OK, however, i think that one meidum class Pirate ship should have at least some more seilds. (oh, and their sheilds regarge fast)
Aliens?(gotta have em heh heh heh ) fast, small, powerful( aliens=auds of ares) bent of extermination of humankind ( but for a reason. perhaps they had been warned by others of their race from the future that humanity would grow too strong?) (/B)
No missle weapons probably. Just pure energy weapons. Energy waves, Lasers, Traction Beams, Force Fields, Stealth.
Oh, we could add mines too. Only i think we should make them invisable, and when you run into them you blow up.
I think we should have some kind way of talking to each other about this plug. I mean on the spot, not over days. AOL Instant Messenger or a chat room would work. Then get everybody who is working on this plug together. Then we can get to sketching this plug together.
------------------ Truth is a double edged sword, with it the ignorant newbie is beaten, with it your mistakes are exposed.
(This message has been edited by Skyfox (edited 12-26-2001).)
Posted by various people... I think Aforementioned space mines. I'm pretty sure that they can be rigged so that the Zoom to Hostile setting doesn't give them away in multiplayer or when the computer has them.
Yes they can indeed be set this way
Space mines sound good. I wonder if it would be possible to rig them to release only when the comp's ship is being chased. I think there is a "fire when in trouble" flag or something like it.
Yes there is... It is the first thing under the special tab
How so... It can be made to work well if you put a little effort into it
------------------ Listed in the top 15 Ares plugin developers by Brookeview Technologies Worldwide. (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2/")Screen shots of upcoming plugins and downloads(/url) Everywhere but the Macaddict fourms : Brookeview
Originally posted by brookeview: ( Also, Ares(unfortunately) cant handle good stealth/cloak tech.
(/B)
The computer ships have no problem finding and hitting a cloaked ship. This makes cloak worthless for combat.(which is what I'd really like to be able to use it for, I think it would be cool)
Originally posted by Skyfox: Maybe add a police class frigate that is used to patorl planets? (could carry cool police paintwork on their ships too
But if Earth had just started conquering the colonies, I don't think they'd have an ordinary police force. Only the military would be available, and the Earth .gov would be more interested in plundering the colonies than protecting them anyways.
Hi-I'm back, and I'm dangerous. Sorry I havn't posted for awile, I've been out of town. Here's some Ideas.
New Race: the Carradee. They have weak ships, but have overwhelming numbers of them. (Like swarms of Ishiman fighters w/ warps). They are constantly pirating Gaitori ships, but they are too sneaky for anyone to know who they are. They are one reason the Gaitori were defeated as quickly as they are{in early Ares}. However, the Salrilians have found out who they are. If they are defeated, the Gaitori will be almost as powerful as the Salrilian, and will almost certainly try to recapture Earth from the humans.
New Ship: Obish Heavy Gunship. They have the manuverability of a heavy cruiser, the warp of an Eleejan cruiser, the shields of a carrier, and the firepower of an Audumedon Carrier, as well as several turret weapons that fire similtaneously. But, they have an enormous resource cost, and take a VERY long time to build. (all ship types are Ishiman unless otherwise specified)
New base ability: Asteroid. An asteroid is taken over by both a transport and an Assault Transport. The EVAT troopers land first, and build a base and an air system. Then the transport arrives and settles the asteroid. Once the asteroid is taken over by all species involved, only transports are needed to recapture the asteroid.
Well, those are my ideas, love 'em or hate 'em. I'll have some more soon. I also like the mine idea that explode on contact with something.
Until we meet again-
The
But it is possible to make the computer not see the cloaked ships... I did it once... it was very scary when a the view zooms from you being able to see the enemy planet to close in to you ship because a computer ship has just decloaked right by you.
The Journalist : We're making a TC, not a mod for the standard Ares scenario.
brookeview : Really? How do you get it to do that? As far as I know there's no way to set a ship to change types when it uncloaks by firing, only when it cloaks/uncloaks using it's special weapon.
Skyfox : I think the webboards are sufficient for the task, but we could get together in the unofficial Ares room on GR(land of the lost) sometime soon I guess.
Really? How do you get it to do that? As far as I know there's no way to set a ship to change types when it uncloaks by firing, only when it cloaks/uncloaks using it's special weapon.
First make 2 of each weapon and each ship you want to supercloak. Then take the first ship and give it normal weapons that only fire normal nothing more, and the cloak that alters base type to the cloaked ship. Make the second ship not able to be engaged and not hated. Give it weapons that when fired fire a normal shot and alter its base type back to the first ship make also make its cloak change it back to the first ship. You now have the perfect cloaking ship. If I remembered that right.
(This message has been edited by brookeview (edited 12-27-2001).)
Here's an intro txt we could use...
Technological advances proceeded swiftly after the Industrial Revolution. The train, heavier-than-air flight, and finally the rocket allowed us to travel farther than we ever had. But soon, we hit a seemingly impervious barrier: the speed of light. No matter how hard the scientists worked, none could discover the secret that lay beyond our grasp. It appeared that we would be trapped in Sol forever, as the slow doom of overpopulation and famine enroached upon the comfortable life we led.
But humanity is a resilient race.
In 2164 AD , we completed five slower-than-light "generation"-style colony ships (Pic of Colony Ship) Each of them could hold 25,000 people. Enough to survive the journey to the stars. After the necessary recruiting took place, the first interstellar ships were launched.
The fate of the other four ships is unknown, but the UNSC Goddard landed at Centauri IV in March, 2290 AD. Our technology has survived the journey, and we soon set up a thriving colony. The other habitable planet in the system, Centauri V, soon was colonized as well.
The year is now 2341 AD. The planets of Centauri have been colonized, and the asteriod belt of the system is now dotted with mining operations. Our scientists have even been hinting at a possible breakthrough recentlya breakthrough in the area of interstellar travel.
The picture is not completely rosy though. Organized piracy runs rampant, and the pirates have mysteriously proceeded rapidly up the technological tree. New designs appear monthly, far faster than our spies report should be possible. The powerful but slow Centaurian fleet is powerless against the fast pirate raiders, and their hidden bases are almost impossible to find.
In fact, lieutenant, there are even rumors of mysterious ships spotted at the edge of Centauri. Ships that appear to be neither Centaurian nor Pirate in origin.
some ideas?:
Centaurian Weapons
Name: Heavy Laser Type: Beam( blue ) Damage: 75 Fire Speed: 25/20 second Range: Long Speed: 25 Ammo/E cost: 15 E/shot
Name: Heavy Laser Turret(dual-mount) Type: Beam( blue ) Damage: 75 Fire Speed: 13/20 second Range: Long Speed: 25 Ammo/E cost: 20 E/shot
Name: Plasma Missile Type: Unguided Missile Damage: 500 Fire Speed: 60/20 second Range: High Medium Speed: 12.5 Ammo/E cost: 35 ammo/no recharge
Name: Nuclear Missile Type: Unguided Missile Damage: 1250(explosion deals damage instead of hit) Fire Speed: 120/20 second Range: High Long Speed: 9.5 Ammo/E cost: 5 ammo/no recharge
Name: Magnetic Pulse Type: guided, smart pulse Damage: short range orange "lightning" beam(4 damage) Fire Speed: 15/20 second Range: Medium(only effective at Short) Speed: 10 Ammo/E cost: 500 ammo/fast recharge
Centaurian Ship Designs
Name: Frigate Shield: 1500 Turn: Medium Speed: Medium Weapons: Beam: Heavy Laser Pulse:
Special:
Name: Raider Shield: 500 Turn: Good Speed: Medium Weapons: Beam: Heavy Laser Pulse:
Special: Magnetic Pulse(10 shot/no recharge)
Name: Hulk Shield: 2000 Turn: Poor Speed: Poor Weapons: Beam:
Pulse:
Special: Transform(takes 30 seconds to complete, shows a little animation of expanding battlestation)
Name: BattleStation (Transformed Hulk) Shield: 15,000 Turn: None Speed: None Weapons: Beam: Heavy Laser Turret Pulse: Magnetic Pulse Special: none(can't transform back)
Name: Battleship Shield: 4500 Turn: Poor Speed: Poor Weapons: Beam: Heavy Laser Turret Pulse: Magnetic Pulse Special: Nuclear Missile
Name: Bombardment Cruiser Shield: 3000 Turn: Medium Speed: Very Poor Weapons: Beam: Plasma Missile Pulse: LR Magnetic Pulse( 1 damage, Long Range but effective only at med and short) Special: Nuclear Missile
I'd also like to see it be a submarine hunt-type thing, where most ships have cloaks, and some could be scoutships, with some sort of ability that would reveal cloaked ships. (perhaps an autotarget beam that would constantly fire and make some sort of symbol on your radar when it hits something. something like that) Each side could have their own style of scoutship.
Also, some ideas about factions:
Earth: I think HVDs should be changed. In my opinion, they're too weak under the control of the AI and too strong under the control of humans. Maybe give them worse turning, but very long ranged weapons (maybe about double the range) and give them some more missiles instead of their beams. Or we could replace them with missile destroyers, which my plans would be: Shielding: 3500 or so Turn: 1-1.5 Speed: 4 Weapons: Pulse: Medium Missile Launcher Beam: Medium Missile Launcher Special: Cloak
Colonist Faction 1: I think they should also have some very high-powered short range weapons with some weak missile launchers, and they could be the ones with the pirates in their system.
Colonist Faction 2: They sound good. It'd be cool if their largest ship was designed like a heavy cruiser. Maybe it could have some form of slow warp. It'd also be cool if they had tougher and smaller transports than most people, so you'd really have to look out and be ready to kill them before they landed. Perhaps in their system they could have some barbarians, that run about with fleets and sack stations and cities. The barbarians could have ships that are also decently fast, with very little shielding and very big guns.
Colonist Faction 3: I'm adding this one in, 'cause some of my ideas (see the aliens section) need it. Also, Earth only taking two smaller colonies seemed a bit easy. Anyway, I think they should have some fast, tough ships with powerful short range guns and no cloaks, and some slower ships with plenty of long range support weapons. So their up-close ships would duke it out with enemy fleets, while their support ships rained fire in from a distance. The support ships should have more powerful guns, compared to their prices, but ones that aren't very good for close-up combat. Their support ships should have cloaks.
Astrominers: Going on strike in the system with colonist faction 1. They don't think they have enough protection from pirates. The military was sent in to break up the strike, and things got violent. Their ships are very maneuverable, but not too fast, and they're tough but have weak guns (need to be able to collide with asteroids, but their weapons aren't meant for destroying ships). Their ships don't have stealth, but instead can mine asteroids (I haven't gotten it to work before, but it supposedly can.) This extra resource boost means that they can mass-produce ships much better, but their lack of stealth means they can only hide by staying near asteroids. Their transports could be just rerigged astrominers (we could set it up somehow that to get them, you had to turn one of your astrominers into a transport) It'd be easy to make a variety of different miners. They could also have some sort of tractor beams (meant for holding asteroids in place to make them more easily mineable) on some of their ships.
Pirates: I'd be sure to make them very maneuverable and set the AI to think they're weaker than they are (pirates would be very careful to look out for their own skin). As stated above, somebody in the system with the first colonist faction decided to try piracy, and it caught on more than it has in other systems.
Barbarians: As I said before, decently fast, very little shielding (maybe a quarter of the norm) and very big guns. They could also have a variety of transports, (some could be faster and tougher, some could have more loads of evats, some could be very combat capable, etc.)
Aliens: I think the story could be that they were already in the system that one of the colonist factions (I was thinking of faction 3) is in when the colony ship arrived, but with only modern-day technology, and the colonists decided to try to conquer their planet, to get access to areas they wanted access to (maybe they had more resources, or they had tropical areas or something). They've been copying faction 3's tech, so they have a lot of things that are slightly worse versions, and their ships are similar, but they tend to be worse and cheaper. Also, their ships could all double as transports or assault transports, and maybe a few of them could be able to capture other ships while in combat. The only humans they've ever known of are the colonists, so they think all humans are the same, and try to save themselves whenever they see humans by going to war with them.
(This message has been edited by Mag Steelglass (edited 12-29-2001).)
(QUOTE)Originally posted by Patrick: (b)The Journalist : We're making a TC, not a mod for the standard Ares scenario. Huh? PLEASE stop using so many abbreviations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway: Story that could be used for several senarios:
Four years after the recapture of earth, and the forming of the Ishiman /Human Union, a border guard on patrol intercepts a weak signal. If was from a previosly unknown race, the Tekkorean, and intended for the Auds, the Sals, the Cantharan Order, the Gaitori, and and the Canadee. It is a allience request. The Auds, Cantharans, Gaitori, and Canadee have already joined.
This group is going to attempt to attack the space of Human/Ishiman, Eleejan, and Obish. All these races will be contributing ships. All planets will need to start building ships, and will congregate at the Fansi System and Proxima Centauri.
New Ship: All Forces Super Carrier. Everything about this carrier is bigger. It carries 15 fighters, and launches them faster(Special). it has both a Twinpulse and a Fullpulse(weapon 2, fire similtaneously) And, it has two cruise missle launchers (weapon 1). On this ship, the launchbay can be removed and replaced with an extra thruster, and used as a Battleship. The Battleship has a Transbolt in stead of a launchbay.